Family Ties: Finding Family History Within U.S. Census

We all have a profound interest in finding out who we may or may not be tied to in terms of our family history. Is my 12th generation tied to Jesse James? Is it true that I have a link to Benedict Arnold? With the many genealogical services on the internet, some accurate and others mundane, we shift our focus on a lost yet extremely potent resource provided by yours truly, the U.S. government – the United States Census, a tool used to track population counts and general household information for the purposes of research and general record keeping. But, what can this data actually provide? We examine below.

Established and signed into legislation in 1902 by Theodore Roosevelt, the Census bureau – once ran by court marshals – provides demographic-specific name, address and also age sensitive data that is ‘enumerated’, or counted, and added to records to be referenced at a later time. Those specific pieces of data, and the format in which they are recorded varied throughout our history, moving from just a tally by age, sex and race of how many people lived in a household, to much more detailed information in recent times that can be used to track all of your family members in one or many areas at once. For those that are looking for their family history ties, this data is vital and readily available at our U.S. government Census website, or even in public libraries. In any case, the Census information is readily available for your informational needs.

The issue with genealogy websites is the information provided is user driven. A family may find someone in their past and simply ‘relate’ that they knew them, and from there they may branch out to find other like-minded individuals. The information contained may not have accurate demographic-sensitive information whereas the U.S. Census is accurate up to the parcel or address at the moment the count was taken. Also consider genealogical websites gather their main information from death records, too, instead of actual live data.

The U.S. Census has several tools at your disposal to find your data. Although the U.S. government will not release personally identifiable information about people to any other person/persons until 72 years after it is collected for the decennial census, you can still harvest all of the information available directly from the Census.gov website or, if you prefer to simply view your census records via microfilm, the National Archives in Washington, D.C. has the census data in that format. Visit Archives.gov to find out more information about microfilm viewing. And on a local level, you can visit your local library for copies of census data stored on microfilm or in print format.

With many websites and services claiming to be able to trace family history, the long overlooked U.S. Census can be a plethora of information that can provide a link to learning more about your family history, more accurately and far less stressful than navigating through ancestry websites and overpaying for data that you are entitled to anyway. Visit your U.S. Census Bureau today.